II recently saw an episode of the "reality" TV show Ghost Hunters, and the T.A.P.S. team used an infrared camera to look for ghosts. At one point a camera captured a form in the general shape of a person near a wall--but everyone is accounted for and the ghost hunters see nothing except via the camera. Any idea what that was?

Ghost Hunters is the world's top ghost-themed television show, and it has been misinforming the public about both ghosts and science for six seasons (see "Ghost-Hunting Mistakes: Science and Pseudoscience in Ghost Investigations" on page 44 of this issue). The Ghost Hunters team prides itself on using modern technology to detect ghosts and other paranormal phenomena, and infrared cameras are among their staple devices. Like the other scientific gear that ghost hunters employ, infrared cameras are valid and useful devices when used correctly.

More often than not, infrared cameras create false-positive readings that amateur ghost hunters mistake for ghostly activity. Without seeing the specific video clip that you are referring to, it's impossible to know exactly what was recorded, but in my years of ghost investigations I have encountered many similar readings. To uninformed audiences and unscientific investigators, the fact that an infrared camera reveals a human-shaped form where clearly no one is around can seem very spooky and mysterious. There is, however, often a perfectly rational and scientific explanation.

The first step to explaining the nature of these "ghostly auras" is understanding the nature of the electromagnetic spectrum. Visible light--the light that our eyes can see--makes up only a fraction of the electromagnetic waves in the world. The next-lowest category of frequency below visible light (and above radio waves and microwaves) consists of infrared electromagnetic waves. In a nutshell, infrared cameras simply allow us to see a lower-frequency wavelength, detecting variations in heat instead of light.

Heat is of course far less transient than light; if we turn off a light switch in a closed room, the area goes dark almost instantly. But if we turn off a source of heat--including body heat--in an area or room, the heat may remain long after the source has been removed. This can seem mysterious to amateur ghost hunters.

At an investigation I carried out last year for the TV show MysteryQuest, one of the ghost hunters used a forward looking infrared (FLIR) camera to detect a foot-long vertical warm spot on a pillar. No one in the room could explain what caused it; one person suggested it was a sign that a ghost had been watching us. In fact I had seen one of the ghost hunters leaning against the pillar a few minutes earlier, and the warm spot matched exactly the height and shape of the man's upper arm. All the ghost hunters swore that none of them had leaned against the pole, but when I suggested they review a video tape, they saw I was correct. If they had not been recording that area (or if I hadn't seen the investigator create the warm spot), it likely would have remained mysterious. This is quite common on TV ghost-hunting shows, and it is likely the explanation for what you saw.

A: Rods are a footnote in forteana, a blip on the paranormal radar. What are they? It depends on who you talk to. Some believe they are extraterrestrial entities; others believe they are a species of unknown invisible animals. (One might think that animals, whether invisible or not, that zoom through the air at high speeds might have been noticed by now—if only because they would regularly collide with people and objects.)

Curiously—and very tellingly—rods almost invariably appear only in photographs, films, and videotapes. To an investigator, this is a big red flag suggesting that the phenomenon is a photographic artifact. In a nutshell, rods are to cryptozoology (or UFOs) what orbs are to ghosts.

The main proponent of the rod phenomenon is a man named Jose Esca­milla, who first “discovered” and publicized it in 1994. Escamilla’s rods “al­legedly zip through the air, never seeming to stop or slow down [and] have been seen almost everywhere that anyone has bothered to look for them.... The best way to spot them is to take a video or movie camera and point it at the sky. Sooner or later some little dark spot will be seen to zip across at high angular velocity, and when it does you will have a rod sighting” (Sheaffer 2000). So what might these mysterious, elongated, blurry “rods” caught on video be?

Bob DuHamel, editor of AmSky, an online amateur astronomy magazine, wrote a detailed analysis of Escamilla’s “rods.” He began by noting a photographic phenomenon “so unremarkable as to be virtually ignored”—namely that fast-moving objects appear elongated in photographs. “When a blurred streak ap­pears on a photograph most of us will see it as a fast moving object; Jose Escamilla sees [it] as an unidentified life form” (DuHamel 2000). Are the rods perhaps merely flying insects caught on film?

Doug Yanega, an entomologist at the University of California at Riverside, not­ed that a rod is “a videographic artifact based on the frame capture rate of the videocam versus the wingbeat frequency of the insects. Essentially what you see is several wingbeat cycles of the insect on each frame of the video, creating the illusion of a rod with bulges along its length. The blurred body of the insect as it moves forward forms the rod, and the oscillation of the wings up and down form[s] the bulges. Anyone with a video camera can duplicate the effect, if you shoot enough footage of flying insects from the right distance” (quoted in Carroll 2003).

Still, Escamilla is undeterred. He has created a Web site featuring pictures of his rods and a documentary film about the subject. Escamilla’s rods are a classic example of how “unexplained” phenomena often occur: someone notices something he thinks is odd or unexplainable and assumes that because he can’t understand it, it must be novel or mysterious. l

References

Carroll, Robert. 2003. Rods. The Skeptics Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions and Dangerous Delusions. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.

DuHamel, Bob. 2000. The ‘rods’ hoax. AmSky, February. Available online at www.amsky.com/ufos/rods.

Sheaffer, Robert. 2000. ET, you’ve got mail. Skeptical Inquirer 24(2).

—D. Phillips

A: We have all seen those white cloudy lines trailing aircraft across the distant sky; most people pay little attention to the contrails, assuming that they are both commonplace and harmless.

Then there’re the conspiracy folks. According to myriad conspiracy theories, some of those “harmless” vapors are instead sinister “chemtrails.” They are allegedly different from ordinary contrails in that they do not evaporate but instead spread out, causing a haze that eventually settles over populated areas. Some say the cloudy lines are part of government weather-controlling experiments; others say that they’re a form of germ warfare. According to Jim Marrs, who claims to be the world’s leading conspiracy theory author (or, at least, that’s what they want you to think!), “the case for the reality of chemtrails is strong.”

Physicist Kim Johnson, of the skeptics group New Mexicans for Science and Reason, examined photos and evidence of chemtrails presented to the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office. Johnson concluded that “there is no evidence that these ‘chemtrails’ are other than expected, normal contrails from jet aircraft that vary in their shapes, duration, and general presentation based on prevailing weather conditions. . . . When a jet engine burns its fuel, the major byproduct is water vapor. When the exhaust passes over the rear stabilizer of an aircraft, the tips or ends of the stabilizer cause the exhaust to expand rapidly. When it does, the temperature decreases rapidly within a turbulent flow, and ice crystal formation is forced. Generally, this makes it look as if the jet were spraying a cloud from the ends of the stabilizer.”

Marrs disputes the scientific explanation, writing in his 2008 book Above Top Secret (published, ironically, by The Disinformation Company), “Chemtrails often occur at altitudes and in conditions where it would be impossible for a contrail to form.” As evidence of the threat posed by chemtrails, Marrs points to a 2007 “investigation” by a television station in Louisiana, KSLA. Investigative reporter Jeff Ferrell tested water captured under a crosshatch of alleged chemtrails. According to Ferrell, “KSLA News 12 had the sample tested at a lab. The results: high level of barium, 6.8 parts per million, (ppm). That’s more than three times the toxic level set by the Environmental Protection Agency.”

Scary, isn’t it? Except that SI contributing editor David E. Thomas, a physicist, took a closer look at the TV report. As Thomas notes, “The actual video clearly shows 68.8 μg/L (micrograms per liter), or 68.8 ppb (parts per billion). . . . 68.8 millionths of a gram per liter corresponds to 68.8 parts per billion. . . . Ferrell overestimated the amount of barium in the test report by a factor of 100. . . . The test result was not ‘three times the toxic level set by the EPA’; it was around thirty times less than the EPA’s toxic limit.” Apparently a big chunk of Marrs’s “strong evidence” for chemtrails is simply the result of a TV reporter’s poor math skills. Ooh, awkward—unless, of course, those who devised mathematics were in on it with their suspicious basic math and tiny percentages!

There’s also the question of what possible purpose the contrails (er, chemtrails) would serve. As Bob Carroll notes in The Skeptics Dictionary, “Any biological or chemical agents released at 25,000 feet or above would be absolutely impossible to control, making any measurement of effects on the ground nearly impossible. . . . Such an exercise would be pointless, unless you just wanted to pollute the atmosphere. And where is the evidence of the illnesses being caused by these agents?”

Alas, conspiracy buffs have no answers for these fundamental questions. It’s easier (and much more fun) to just sit back and wonder what secret government experiments we are being exposed to that “they” aren’t telling us about.

References

• Carroll, Robert. 2007. Chemtrails (contrails). Available online at skepdic.com.
• Johnson, M. Kim. 1999. Chemtrails analysis. NMSR Reports, 5(12), December.
• Marrs, Jim. 2008. Above Top Secret. New York, NY: The Disinformation Company.
• Thomas, David. 2008. “Chemtrail fears thrive on Internet.” Available on the Web site for New Mexicans for Science and Reason at nmsr.org.

Q: What explains the ability of some people to insert sharp spikes into their skin without bleeding or pain?

I’m sure there is nothing paranormal involved, but my friend believes otherwise.

—A. Lawson

Zamora the Torture King with skewers through his jaw and arm. (Photo by Benjamin Radford)

A: With perhaps the notable exception of masochists, sticking sharp spikes and skewers into your body isn’t something most people do for fun. It hurts, it can be dangerous, and it’s one of those skills that’s best left off your resume.

However, there are a few who do it for a living as part of an act. One of them is Zamora the Torture King, a Las Vegas-based performer who has entertained (and disturbed) audiences for years with his peculiar brand of showmanship.

In his book Secrets of the Sideshows, fellow SI columnist and CSI investigator extraordinaire Joe Nickell discusses this as a version of the “human pincushion act” well-known to sideshow performers during the heyday of the carnival (Nickell 2005, 234).

There are several psychological and physiological processes at play. The first is the audience’s expectations: when they see a large, sharp, gleaming spike, they tend to overestimate the damage it will do. They may picture what it would do to their own bodies if they stepped on it or jabbed it into their chests. Yet in the right hands, the sharper the skewer is, the less blood there will be, since the performer can then carefully guide it into place with minimal dermal damage.

Then there’s the psychology of the victim/performer. He (it’s usually a he) knows when the pain is coming and, through practice, can steel himself against it. In some cases, the skeweree seems better able to control pain than most people: Zamora’s tolerance for pain was tested by Dr. Joshua Prager of the UCLA School of Medicine. According to Prager, Zamora’s ability to withstand pain was “off the charts,” most likely due to meditation and self-hypnosis (Is It Real? 2005). Another simple way to ease the discomfort is to take painkillers beforehand—though not aspirin, which would thin the blood and create more bleeding.

The other part is physiological: cleanly made puncture wounds bleed far less than scrapes or cuts, and the skewers are often placed in the fleshy parts of the body, away from major veins and arteries. The inside of the forearms is a popular puncture place, as it has relatively few areas that register pain and even fewer that will bleed profusely. It’s not quite accurate to say that there is no blood or pain, but there is certainly less than most people would expect upon seeing a huge metal spike through the arm or jaw.

References

• Is it Real? Superhuman Powers. 2005. National Geographic Television. Airdate August 20 (season 1, episode 7).
• Nickell, Joe. 2005. Secrets of the Sideshows. University of Kentucky Press: Lexington, Kentucky.

Q: I heard about some strange lights over Phoenix that were sighted recently. I doubt they were aliens, but does anyone know what they were?

— J. Griffith

A: Yes, in fact we do. On the evening of April 21, 2008, hundreds of residents in Phoenix, Arizona, called police and local news media to report four (some witnesses said five) bright, red lights hovering silently over the city. They changed position after a while, moving from a triangular to rectangular configuration, then disappeared one by one.

The Air Force claimed they had no aircraft in the area at the time and could shed no light on the mystery. According to FAA spokesman Ian Gregor, “We did receive a number of reports from people who said they saw red lights in the skies on Monday night. Among them were some air traffic controllers [at the Phoenix Deer Valley Airport]. However, there were no unusual targets or unidentified aircraft on our radar scopes. . . . We don’t know where the lights came from” (Sunnucks 2008).

Theories abounded, with UFOs and aliens of course being very popular. Was it the beginning of an invasion? Should Earthlings begin searching for the book How to Serve Man?

The lights remained a mystery and became an international media story. The case took a twist two days later when a local television station aired a startling confession by an anonymous hoaxer: he had created the UFO lights using road flares tied to helium balloons, launching them at one-minute intervals. Some people were amused by the hoax, others were angered, and many conspiracy-minded UFO buffs were skeptical of the explanation.

It’s true that just because a person has confessed to a hoax doesn’t mean the case is solved. After all, people sometimes falsely confess to things they didn’t do. A confession (especially an anonymous one) by itself is not credible unless corroborated by physical evidence. Let’s analyze the facts of the case from a skeptical investigator’s perspective.

1. The formation of the lights is consistent with independently moving objects, not fixed lights on an aircraft. They rose into the air together, stayed in more or less the same formation while in the same air currents, then drifted apart as they gained altitude. In fact, airport officials reported that “the lights were rising as they watched” (Associated Press 2008). Thus, the lights were sighted traveling vertically up into the air (as balloons do), instead of horizontally through the air (as aircraft do). Furthermore, when the lights did move horizontally, they drifted toward the east—the same direction as the wind.
2. Air traffic controllers reported that nothing showed up on their radar. If the lights were the only visible part of a metallic spaceship or airplane, they would have appeared on radar. However, “UFOs” consisting of small balloons, road flares, and some fishing line would be invisible to radar.
3. The way the lights disappeared also supports the hoax theory. They did not zoom away at high speed, as one might expect from an aircraft. Nor did they all suddenly and mysteriously disappear. Instead, eyewitnesses reported that the lights were visible for between fifteen and thirty minutes until they disappeared one by one. This is exactly the pattern we would expect to see from flares that were lit (and launched) in sequence: they would go up, remain lit for about twenty minutes, then the first flare would extinguish. A minute or two later the second would burn out, and so on.

And, as a final nail in the coffin for the UFO buffs who really, really wanted the lights to be mysterious and unexplained…

4. One of the hoaxer’s neighbors, a Mr. Mailo, actually watched the hoaxer launch the helium balloons and flares. Mailo said the flares were lit about 8 p.m., just before the UFO lights were first sighted.

That explains the mysterious 2008 Phoenix Lights. Any object seen in the sky, especially at night, can be very difficult to identify, and it’s no wonder that the lights puzzled many people. All that is needed to create a UFO sighting is one person who may not recognize a light or object in the sky.

This is not the first time that strange lights have appeared in the dark skies over Phoenix. In 1997, similar lights were reported; the military had been dropping flares over a nearby testing range, although many UFO believers rejected that explanation as part of a cover-up. Not all UFO sightings are hoaxes—in fact most are simply misidentifications—but this case shows just how easy it is to fool the public and create a media stir.

References

• Associated Press. 2008. Mysterious lights spotted over North Phoenix. April 22. Available online at mercurynews.com.
• Sunnucks, M. 2008. “Mysterious lights in Phoenix sky ‘a nonissue,’ FAA says.” The Business Journal of Phoenix, April 22. Available online at bizjournals.com.

Q: People keep showing me pictures that have “orbs” in them. They usually look like round spots of light. Some of these people claim that the orbs are angels or ghosts. Any idea what they really are?

—R. Wilber

Figure 1. A ghostly orb photographed in the haunted soldiers’ barracks at Fort George, in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada.

A: Orbs appear over my desk on a regular basis. Well, actually, they come across my desk every month or two, when someone sends me, either by e-mail or postal mail, photographs of “mysterious” orbs they find scary, amazing, or simply puzzling. Orb photos are essentially like Rorschach cards, though the forms are usually white and round instead of black and blobby. The interpretations of both, however, reveal much about how the viewer sees the world.

According to most books on ghosts and hauntings that are written by authors with more enthusiasm than critical-thinking skills, just about anyone can find evidence of ghosts using a common device in nearly every home: a camera. Orbs have also been reported in connection with crop circles and UFOs; they are a good, all-around “unexplained” phenomenon that can be adapted to fit many paranormal scenarios.

Most orbs are simply round or oval white shapes, though they may take a variety of forms. There is not one blanket cause for all orbs; many things can create the phenomena, ranging from insects to dust. In a series of experiments, I was able to create orb photos under a wide range of circumstances. The easiest way to create orbs is to take a flash photograph outdoors on a rainy night. The flash will reflect off of the individual droplets and appear as dozens of white, floating orbs. (The effect is most pronounced in a light rain, though even a little moisture in the air can create mysterious orbs.) CSI Senior Research Fellow Joe Nickell (1994), in his own studies, found that flashes reflecting back from camera straps are a common source of orbs, as are unnoticed shiny surfaces that can reflect a camera flash.

During one investigation I conducted at Fort George (“Canada’s most haunted place,” in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario), I examined a large, wooden barracks where both ghosts and orbs had been reported. I took several flash photographs of the area, and I noticed that the building (essentially, a barn-like structure) was quite dusty, which can create orbs. As a television crew interviewed some ghost hunters, I noticed one orb, photographed it, and wondered what it might be (see figure 1). It was at about chest height and did not move at all, suggesting that it was neither an insect nor a dust particle; instead, it seemed supernaturally suspended in the air. It was several feet away from the nearest post, wall, or other visible means of support. It was quite odd, I had to admit. I showed the image to one of the ghost hunters, who seemed pleased that a skeptic had indeed captured what was obviously a ghost orb.

Figure 2. Further investigation reveals that the “orb” was simply a tiny dust particle, caught in a spiderweb, reflected by a camera flash.

Not content to simply declare my orb a sign of the supernatural, I searched harder for a solution. Sure enough, closer investigation revealed that the orb was in fact a tiny piece of dust or lint that clung to the remnants of a spider web (see figure 2). It was a very unusual place for a web, and, had I not traced the long, nearly invisible line to its arachnid anchor, I would have rejected a web as an explanation. But it was a very long strand and just far enough away from the walkway that all but the tallest passersby would not run into it. It was very difficult to see, and only apparent when a dark color was held up in the air behind it for contrast—or when caught in a flash photograph.

Orbs may seem otherworldly because they usually appear only in photographs and are usually invisible to the naked eye. They are often unnoticed when the photo is taken; it is only later that the presence of a ghostly, unnatural, glowing object is discovered, sometimes appearing over or around an unsuspecting person. To those unaware of alternative explanations, it is no wonder that orbs spook them. Most ghost investigators will admit that at least some orb photos are of mundane phenomena and are not necessarily ghosts. Still, they insist, there must be some orbs that defy rational explanation, though none has yet been found. But even if that is true, no one has proven that anything but photographic and optical mechanics can create orbs.

References

• Nickell, Joe. 1994. Camera Clues: A Handbook for Photographic Investigation. Lexington, Kentucky: University of Kentucky Press.

Q: I recently came across a Christian publication which claimed that Noah’s Ark had been found. I don’t believe it. What is the truth?

—M. Andrade

A: In this world there are things that seem on the verge of being discovered every so often, yet never quite materialize. The “Lost City” of Atlantis, for example, has been claimed to have been found at least a half dozen times. One researcher is pretty sure it is in Bolivia; another says it is Antarctica; a third claims that Bimini beachrock may be from the lost civilization (see Eugene Shinn’s article in the January/February 2004 SI). So it is with Noah’s Ark.

The difference is, of course, that the implications of Noah’s Ark actually being found extend far beyond archaeology. The weight of all the world’s animals is nothing compared to the religious freight that the Ark carries.

The Ark story is implausible on the face of it; there simply wouldn’t be enough space on the boat to accommodate two (or seven, depending on the source) of every living animal (including dinosaurs), along with the food and water necessary to keep them alive for over six months. Still, biblical literalists—those who believe that proof of the Bible’s events remains to be found—have spent lives and fortunes trying to validate their beliefs.

Before discussing the recent claims regarding the whereabouts of Noah’s vessel, a history of Ark “finds” is instructive. Violet M. Cummings is the author of several books on Noah’s Ark, among them Noah’s Ark: Fable or Fact? (1975), in which she claimed that Noah’s Ark was found on Turkey’s Mount Ararat. According to the 1976 book and film In Search of Noah’s Ark, “there is now actual photographic evidence that Noah’s Ark really does exist.... Scientists have used satellites, computers, and powerful cameras to pinpoint the Ark’s exact location on Mt. Ararat.” This is a rather remarkable claim, for despite repeated trips to Mt. Ararat over the past thirty years, the Ark remains elusive. Undeterred by a lack of evidence, in 1982 Cummings issued a book titled, Has Anybody Really Seen Noah’s Ark?, published by Creation-Life Publishers. The subtitle, “An Affirmative Definitive Report,” hints at Cummings’s conclusion.

Interest in Noah’s Ark resurfaced in February 1993, when CBS aired a two-hour primetime special titled, The Incredible Discovery of Noah’s Ark. (Little did CBS know that they were using incredible in its accurate, proper meaning: “not credible.”) As Ken Feder describes in his book Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries, the special “was a hodgepodge of unverifiable stories and misrepresentations of the paleontological, archaeological, and historical records.” It included the riveting testimony of a George Jammal, who claimed not only to have personally seen the Ark on Ararat but recovered a piece of it. Jammal’s story (and the chunk of wood he displayed) impressed both CBS producers and viewers. Yet Jammal was later revealed as a paid actor who had never been to Turkey and whose piece of the Ark was not an unknown ancient timber (identified in the Bible as “gopher wood”) but instead modern pine soaked in soy sauce and artificially aged in an oven. Red-faced CBS, which had not done a whit of fact-checking for their much-hyped special, said that the program was entertainment, not a documentary.

So the matter stood until June 2006, when a team of archaeologists from the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration (B.A.S.E) Institute, a Christian organization, claimed to have found Noah’s Ark at 13,000 feet in the Elburz mountains of Iran. “I can’t imagine what it could be if it is not the Ark,” said team member Arch Bonnema. They brought back pieces of stone they claim may be petrified wood beams, as well as video footage of the Ark (and by “the Ark” I mean “a large dark rock formation”).

The team believes that within the rock they can see evidence of hundreds of massive, hand-hewn wooden beams laid out in the presumed size and shape of the Ark. They seem to have experienced pareidolia; seeing what they want to see in ambiguous patterns or images. Just as religious people will see images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary in toast, stains, or clouds, they may also see images of Noah’s Ark in stone cliffs. (In New Mexico’s Santa Fe National Forest there is a large rock formation called Battleship Rock, which—from a certain angle—does indeed look like a battleship. One wonders what the B.A.S.E. team would make of that.)

Noah’s Ark enthusiasts are in the somewhat awkward position of deciding which (if any) of several alleged Ark finds is the real one.

The B.A.S.E. claims have yet to be proven. Ultimately, it may not matter, because, as founder Bob Cornuke states, “I guess what my wife says my business is, we sell hope. Hope that it could be true, hope that there is a God.” Yet the question is not about faith, hope, or God; the question is whether Noah’s Ark is real and has been found. Like Atlantis, the Ark will continue to be “found” by those looking for it— whether it exists or not.